Bank of America Maintains Buy, $27 Target on Hartford Financial

Bank of America reiterates its Buy rating and $27 target price on Hartford Financial Services HIG as EPS expectations are lowered but valuation prices risk in. BofA says, “We are lowering our 4Q11 estimate from $0.79 per share to $0.48 per share largely due to increased losses for workers' compensation (for prior years, quarters and the current quarter) and a $20 million write-off of goodwill. We are lowering our 2012 full year estimate from $3.30 to $3.05 per share to reflect lower life earnings (in part due to changes in deferred acquisition cost [DAC] accounting) although we narrowed our property/casualty underwriting margin somewhat as well.” HIG closed at 17.20 per share on Thursday.